Grassroots Railroad Sports?

More stuff from the Iowa Pacific Holdings implosion continues to find homes.

The pair of Lehigh Valley-painted F7s that were owned by the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey and basically abandoned by IPH in Missouri and left to the vandals and elements, have been sold to Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. URHS of NJ had leased them to IPH, under the agreement that IPH would return them to operation in exchange. IPH never paid the lease, never performed any work on the F7s, and then left them to their fates, along with some other equipment leased to them by URHS of NJ. So, the F7s have been sold off so that the URHS can get some of the rare, more historically significant pieces back home. They were actually Chicago & North Western F7s, which had had their steam generators replaced with HEP generators. They were conveyed to UP when they took over C&NW, who then sold them to NJ Transit, who in turn sold them to the URHS of NJ when they retired them. They were then painted in the Lehigh Valley colors, run for some time before they fell out of service. I feel bad for URHS for having to sell them off, and I feel bad for the pair of once-beautiful units that have been neglected and vandalized, but at least they are going to a good home. My guess is that TVRM will paint them in Southern colors, considering TVRM's heavy Southern focus.

Meanwhile, one of the IPH E8s, #515, has been purchased and donated to Illinois Railway Museum. IPH #515 is ex-C&NW, as evidenced by the lack of numberboards, and then went to Metra and then was purchased by Ed Ellis for his Iowa Pacific Holdings. IRM plans to return it to it's original C&NW appearance. The same donor is also donating ex-PRR Pullman heavyweight John Greenleaf Whittier.

Some other IOU Pacific items that have already found a new home include the two BL-2s from Saratoga & North Creek that Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum bought, the eleven passenger cars purchased by Reading & Northern from San Luis & Rio Grande, the ex-LS&I 2-8-0 #20 at San Luis & Rio Grande that Colebrookdale Railroad bought, and the SP 2-6-0 #1744 at San Luis & Rio Grande bought by Niles Canyon Railway

In reply to NickD :

I may have mentioned this previously, but I may have seen #515 at the Monicello, IL museum back around 2003. I took my daughter there to ride the train & remember seeing a whole train nicely restored(from the outside anyway) in a color scheme similar to this(Illinois Central?). When I asked about it, one of the members said the whole train was owned by one person. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

It's the Illinois Central passenger livery. Ed Ellis would be the individual. He tried being the next Genesee & Wyoming and bought up a ton of shortlines and tourist operations all over the US, and even a few overseas in the U.K. But he tried to run them like a 1:1-scale model railroad. He got too hung up on buying and leasing all sorts of equipment, lots of E- and F-Units and passenger cars, and wasn't paying his bills. It finally caught up with him 2 years ago and now everyone is trying to pick up the pieces.

In reply to NickD :

Ouch, that kinda sucks. Hopefully the equipment ends up with good caretakers. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

I feel bad for some of the groups that leased equipment to IPH. URHS of NJ is one of those groups, and they really got screwed. For years they've amassed a pretty nice collection of rolling stock related to New Jersey railroad history, but they've just been unable to find a home for it all. They've spoken with a number of locations and tried to get a permanent home to display their collection and every time it falls through So the deal with IPH was that they would lease them the equipment, which would generate some more income for URHS of NJ to help find a permanent home while not having to store and maintain the equipment. They leased them the two F-7s, which were stored serviceable and there was a provision in the lease that IPH would return them to operating condition, three ex-Great Northern coaches, one ex-PRR coach, and three of the lightweight all-aluminum ex-Erie-Lackawanna Pullman-built Comet I commuter coaches.

IPH paid the lease in 2015, but it was unable to pay in 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to court documents. By 2019, all nine pieces of equipment used by Iowa Pacific were “either mothballed or abandoned.” The three Great Northern coaches were left in Mississippi. The PRR coach was abandoned in Texas. The three Erie Lackawanna Comet I coaches were in Indiana after Iowa Pacific subleased the cars, which was in violation of the lease agreement. Iowa Pacific had originally promised to restore the cars and remove graffiti but instead covered it with blank white vinyl. Later on, when the cars were tagged again, Iowa Pacific simply painted over the vinyl, damaging the cars’ original brushed aluminum finish. The F7s weren't returned to operation, but were instead left on a siding in Mississippi where they have been heavily vandalized. According to URHS, the windshields have been smashed, the horns and number boards stolen, and gauges ripped out of the cab.

URHS said it ended up spending thousands of dollars to triage the equipment in preparation for movement. In order to bring some of the equipment home, URHS was forced to sell the three ex-GN cars to U.S Sugar for their Sugar Express program, and the F7s have just recently been sold to Tenessee Valley Railway Museum. The proceeds from that sale will go toward moving the ex-EL “Comet I” cars and the ex-PRR coach. Court documents state that the non-profit is owed $14,156 but officials with the URHS  said Iowa Pacific actually owes them more than $635,000. Seems unlikely that they'll ever see all of that money. And I can't imagine that URHS of NJ is the only group in that predicament, they've just been one of the more vocal.

One of the B&O's stately P-1c Pacifics kicks up some dust at Holmes, Pennsylvania on July 29th, 1946. This dapper batch of heavy Pacifics were rebuilt from older 1911-built Q-1 class Mikados by the B&O in 1924.

One of the B&O's "Big Sixes", the nickname for B&O's S-1 class 2-10-2s, shoves hard on the rear of one of the B&O's unique wagontop cabooses over Sand Patch Grade.

A strange scene, a P-1c Pacific acting as a helper for a Big Six on a freight train.

The B&O's Cincinattian was never the most popular train in terms of ridership (in fact, C&O's Chessie was planned to run a similar route, and when they saw how poor Cincinattian ridership was they cancelled the Chessie before it turned a wheel), but it sure was pretty. The B&O put some very classy homebuilt streamlining on a handful of their P-7 Pacifics and some old heavyweight passenger cars. Donald Furler caught it at Swanton, Maryland in 1948. 

Two Big Sixes put their shoulders against a wagontop caboose at Meyersdale, PA.

The B&O invented the articulated locomotive with the 0-6-6-0 named "Old Maude" and went on to own a dizzying array of wheel configurations of articulated locomotives: 0-6-6-0s, 0-8-8-0s, 2-6-6-2s, 2-6-6-4s, 2-8-8-0s, 2-8-8-4s. Here, one of the 2-8-8-0s drags a 65-car coal train through Cloe, PA 

A 2-8-8-0 teams up with one of the mighty and much-loved 2-8-8-4 EM-1s at Swanton, Maryland.

My favorite of B&O's steam power was their T-3 Mountains, described by David Page Morgan as B&O's "racy, tireless children of war". Using boilers from a number of older Pacifics and Mikados, the B&O constructed a powerful, high speed locomotive that was equally at home hauling passengers and tonnage. Through WWII, the T-3s were a vital part of the B&O's roster.

A T-3 with a long-range Vanderbilt tender hustles passengers through the Narrows at Cumberland, Maryland.

P-1c Pacific #5087 gets an assist from Q-4 Mikado #4417 at Swanton, Maryland.

NickD said:

Fred Kepner is a reclusive old fellow up in Oregon. He purchased a bunch of steam locomotives and moved them to his property. They include a GN 2-8-0, a Pickering Lumber 90-ton 3-truck Shay, a Santa Maria Valley 2-8-2, a Sierra Railway logging Mallet that's cut into about 3 pieces, and a Sierra Railway 2-8-0. They have all been collecting rust for many years, and Kepner doesn't have the means to restore any of them. People have tried making offers but he either hits them with some outrageous price for their decrepit condition, or he refuses to split the "collection" up because he wants someone to inherit the complete collection when he dies. 

So I mentioned this one a month or so ago. Well, it turns out that Fred Kepner had passed away back in October. His collection has been sold to Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Garibaldi, OR. The collection consists of:

• Mc Bryde Sugar No. 4, 0-6-0, 30-inch gauge, Baldwin 1900, C/N 17686 with 5 associated flatcars
• Oregon-American Lumber No. 105, 2-6-2, standard gauge w/ tender, Baldwin 1925 C/N 58193 *
• Oregon-American Lumber No. 104, 2-6-2T, standard gauge, Baldwin 1923, C/N 56851 *
• Glen Alden Corp. No. 28, 0-4-0, 36-inch gauge, Vulcan 1918, re-boilered
• Long Bell Lumber No. 4, 2-6-2, standard gauge, Baldwin 1907, C/N 31152
• Oregon Pacific & Eastern No. 1, 2-6-2T, standard gauge, Baldwin 1925, C/N 59206
• Sierra Railroad No. 38, 2-6-6-2, standard gauge, Baldwin 1934 *
• Great Northern No. 1246, 2-8-0, standard gauge, Baldwin, 1907 C/N 32297
• Sierra Railroad No. 18, 2-8-0, (No tender) Baldwin 1906, C/N 29790
• Sierra Railroad No. 36, 2-8-2, Alco 1930, C/N 68278
• Pickering Lumber Corp. No. 8, 3 Truck Shay, 1924, Lima, C/N 3254 *
• Charles McCormick Lumber No. 100, 2-8-2, standard gauge, Baldwin 1925, C/N 59284
• Southern Pacific wrecker No. 7180. Bucyrus C/N 4535. 1926, 160-ton w/idler car and tool car

All of those are at his Merrill Oregon property. He also owned the following, which are all stored off site:

• Bonhomie & Hattiesburg No. 300, 2-8-2, Baldwin 1925, C/N 58241 In Mississippi
• Sierra Railroad No. 34, 2-8-2, Baldwin 1925, C/N 58679 In Jamestown, California
• Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. No. 101, Baldwin diesel, DS4-4-750. C/N 74814 In Klamath Falls w/coach
• Pickering Crane No. 2, Jamestown, Calif., American No. 1305 “Logger Special,” 1925

Those marked with asterisks are being kept by Oregon Coast Scenic, while those not marked with an asterisk will likely be put up for sale and rehomed.

It's interesting to see that a bunch of the stuff that there has been much wailing and wringing of hands over for decades has, all in the past couple years, seen some sort of resolution.

Fred Kepner's collection, sold to Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad this weekend.

PRR #1361, got a new lease on life headed by a group of people who have the money and knowledge and wherewithal to get it running again this year.

East Broad Top Railroad, revived last year by a lot of the same people bringing back PRR #1361, with huge plans for the future and, again, the muscle to get it done.

Florida East Coast #148, after years of aborted restorations and neglect, was brought back from a pile of rust strewn across Colorado to better than new condition in 2019.

B&LE #643, having sat outside for years and been speculated to be as good as scrapped, was saved at the eleventh hour by Age of Steam Roundhouse in 2019.

Reading #1187, the 0-4-0 Camelback decaying on the dead line at Strasburg, was unexpectedly sold to Age of Steam Roundhouse this year.

The D&H Sharks up in Michigan were announced to be preserved upon the owners death, and then made a rare appearance this year for the first time in 10 years.

After a touch-and-go restoration that always seemed up in the air and at risk of being canceled, C&O #1309 is up and running.

If this keeps up, railfans won't have anything to worry about and make all sorts of unrealistic speculative plans for things that they don't own. As things currently sit, they've still got the GG1 at B&O Railroad Museum, the two GG1s up at Cooperstown Junction, Canadian Pacific #972 at Strasburg, and Southern #722 at the Great Smokey Mountains Railroad.

A gaggle of New York Central E-units (technically Penn Central at this point) at Albany, NY, with a lone D&H PA interloper on the Laurentian on July 22nd, 1968. 

In reply to NickD :

I wonder exactly where that Baldwin 2-8-2 is located? I'm about 70-miles from Hattiesburg. Not that I have room for it, or even the $$$ to transport it. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

412 Newman Street at the old Southern Depot. You can see it on Google Street view, along with some cars and a caboose

In reply to NickD :

Wow, I didn't realize it had a cosmetic restoration. I expected it to be similar condition to the ones you posted above. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

A fairly recent change. Up until 2016 it looked like this. At one point it was owned by George Hart, along with the other surviving Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern steam locomotive, 2-6-2 #250. He had the #250 moved up to PA and it ran at the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern for a while (it's now stuffed and mounted at Edaville in Massachusetts), but the #300 was lacking an FRA Form 4, and so he refused delivery of it, when Fred Kepner bought it.